Announcing the GAMESbrief Surgery

As GAMESbrief‘s popularity has grown, we often receive requests from developers, publishers or marketers who want to quiz Nicholas about a specific topic. It might be a studio with a great game which they’re struggling to make money from, or a publisher having difficulty understanding how its existing brands can be made to work in a free-to-play world – or perhaps a veteran developer keen to strike out as an entrepreneur, but not sure how to proceed down the path, or a venture capitalist seeking to understand this rapidly growing marketplace.

The information we post on the GAMESbrief blog is helpful, and Nicholas’ popular book, How To Publish A Game, contains a lot of practical guidance – but every situation is unique, so we receive many requests to meet Nicholas and engage him as a consultant.

The problem is that Nicholas’ time is limited, and often filled with commitments to existing clients, which have ranged from publisher Square Enix to developer Firefly Studios, via media corporations like TV broadcaster Channel 4 and magazine publisher IPC Media. When we tell this to people requesting his input on their projects, though, we often get an interesting response. “Okay,” they say, “but if he can’t do a day or a week, can’t we just book him for an hour or two?”

To which our response, after a little thinking, was “actually, sure – why not?”

That’s why today we’re delighted to be launching the GAMESbriefSurgery. These are short consultations with Nicholas, which you can book online, and which are either carried out over a coffee in London, or by Skype from anywhere in the world. You can book an hour or two hours, and during that time, you can quiz Nicholas about any aspect of your business.

Topics Nicholas can help you to explore as a developer or publisher include how to use true fans to get an ARPU ten times higher than the industry average; how to use psychology and social proof to improve retention and halve your churn rate; or how to acquire customers in a post-virality age using game design, third party tools or relationships. For IP owners, Nicholas’ advice can help you to aggressively monetise an existing high-audience brand or use games to retain and monetise audiences around a traditional brand.

We hope that the GAMESbriefSurgery will prove to be an effective way for our community to access Nicholas’ expertise and apply it to their games and brands – and to launch the Surgery, we’re also giving away digital copies of How To Publish A Game (worth £99 each) absolutely free with the first five surgery bookings. (If you’re not one of the lucky first five, you’ll be able to buy the book at half price with your booking.)

Ski Championship was nothing to do with GAMESbrief. What you read was a guest post from the developers.

Vijay Sharma

I am a fan of pists oj vamesbrief on studies and experiences of indie studios. Always wanted to buy your books but when I read you guys published a game ski champion something and you couldnt succeed. I couldnt convince myself to buy it. You did so many thinks wrong there. Let me know if I am wrong or what you think please.

About

Gamesbrief is a blog about the business of games. We look behind the headlines to tell you not just what is happening to games, but why it matters to your business. From Activision to Zynga, we analyse the companies who are making waves in the games industry and the new platforms, like Facebook, iPhone and Unity, that are changing the market.